A-"Muse"-ing Thoughts

Good Quotes

stephen wright:

“Black holes are where God divided by zero.”

emo phillips:

“i wanted a bike, and asked god to give me one.  but then i realized god doesn’t work that way.
so i decided to steal a bike and ask god for forgiveness.  it worked.”

(HT to Marko)

Crazy Test

If you are my friend, the good news is that you have MORE than a 50/50 chance of living.  EWWWW

44%

Home Improvements

Wow... Christi and I have been CRAZY BUSY with home improvement projects.  I state it that way because they are not really home "repairs" as there really is nothing wrong with this house.  But, Christi and I want to really make this house OUR home and make it fit our personality and desires.  Certainly we cannot do (at least not yet) all of the things that we want to do because we can't afford it all, so we decided to prioritize the projects and start from there.

Pictures will be coming soon.... but here is what we have been working on.
- Changing all of the doorknobs in the house from gold to silver color
- Changing all of the light fixtures in our house from gold to silver
- Installing ceiling fans in our master bedroom and living room.
- Painting the kitchen yellow
- Painting the downstairs bedroom burgundy.
- Painting our living room dark brown
- Painting our master bedroom light blue
- Installing Hard Wood flooring in our living room

That's what we are working on right now.  It is a LOT to do, but when it is done it will look GREAT!!!

I am excited to take pictures when the individual projects are finished and post them on here for all to see.  So stay tuned for more details and pictures of it all. 

I've Been Flocked

So, while I don't start work at my new church until February 1st, Christi and I wanted to worship today at our new church.  So we went to a Sunday School class and then the traditional worship service this morning at St. Mark Presbyterian Church.

After church we went out to lunch with some friends of ours, the Senior pastor and his wife, and another couple we just met this morning. 

Then after lunch we came home... to a surprise!!!

As you can see, we were flocked while we were at church this morning.

It appears that this is a tradition of the youth ministry here.  And what an incredible welcome this was for us.  Christi and I drove up to our house and found the following view:

What a wonderful and hilarious surprise this was for us.  We were laughing so hard.  I also felt like this was an incredible welcome from the youth group here.  And what a creative alternative to "TPing" or other things of that sort. 

So much fun ... and lots of laughs!!!

Hi's and Lowe's

Wow!!!  I can hardly believe we have been here in our new home now for 5 days.  It is strange.  It hit me today, too, that tomorrow will be one week since leaving Irvine.  That feels very strange.  I think it also feels weird because we are still so far from being truly moved in to our new house.  Still so many boxes to unpack and sort and put away.  Lots of work to do around the house.  Lots of moving details to take care of.  So much to do.  Christi has been amazing around the house.  She is quite an incredible worker and has done so much.

We have had quite a few people in the past 5 days stop by to say "Hi".  It was ironic because we didn't have anyone stop by today (or call) to welcome us, and Christi and I both felt sad that no one had come by... then I thought to myself that in the first week of living in Irvine we actually didn't have a single person at all come by or call to welcome us.  Sure put it in perspective for me.

Today, Christi and I also decided to go to Lowe's to get some home improvement stuff.  We have decided to take out the carpet in the Living/Dining room downstairs and install hardwood floors.  So we ordered that today. We also decided to replace all of the light fixtures (which are ugly gold-color) with the silver color that matches everything else we have.  We then decided to also replace all gold doorknobs with silver and all gold doorstops with silver.  We bought a ceiling fan/light for our living room and one for our bedroom as well.  Then we bought paint for our kitchen (light yellow), downstairs bathroom (burgundy), the living room (light tan) and the bedroom (light blue).  We will paint these four rooms as well.  We have some other home improvements that we would like to do, but we are taking them a bit at a time - and this is enough for now.  Christi and I spent almost 4 hours in Lowe's shopping for all of the items we needed.  Crazy!!!

Tomorrow, Christi and I will go and worship at St. Mark's Presbyterian Church and go to a Sunday School class, but I will be avoiding the youth ministry so as to not confuse anyone about the fact that I am in town, but not starting work until Feb. 1st. 

Moving In

Not a lot to update here.  We are unpacking and unpacking and sorting and sorting.  Christi is amazing at this, and she has already made this house feel so much like our home!!!  Her sense of decor and placement of things is awesome.  There is nothing like a woman's touch to make things more beautiful.

We have had some wonderful help and visitors stopping by.  What a welcome we have received so far.

More to come...

Our New (Full) Home

So, the very next day after we arrived here and took the pictures of our new, empty house the movers arrived.  They filled our home with all of the furniture and boxes and Christi and I began to empty them out.  Now, these pictures are taken the day after the movers arrived, so forgive the mess as we have a LOT more to unpack and organize... but it is fun to see our new home with our own belongings inside it.

Enjoy...

Our New (Empty) Home

So, we are getting ready to set up our new home.  We walked around the house trying to decide what we wanted to do in each room and where everything is going to go.  I am sure a lot of that will change and be modified over time. 

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to post pictures of our new home.  Today I will post some of the pictures of the empty house - before the movers arrive with all of our stuff.  Tomorrow I will post pictures of our house after the movers have arrived.

So, enjoy some pictures of our new, wonderful and amazing home. 

Final Travel Day

Well, after another nice night, Christi and I got up and hit the road for the last leg of the trip leaving at about noon again today.  We figured it would take between 3 and 4 hours to make it to our new home in Boerne, TX. 

We headed out and about 2 1/2 hours into the trip, I got my first real welcome to Texas - a speeding ticket.  OUCH!!!!  Yes, I was pulled over having been clocked going 88 mph in an 80 mph zone.  GRRRRR.  Truth be told this is only my SECOND speeding ticket in my entire life.  I had been warned not to speed in Texas, but I was just so anxious to finally arrive, I was pushing it.  I learned my lesson, the hard way!!!

Well, at 3:30 pm Christi and I pulled into the driveway of our NEW HOME!!!!  How very exciting and wonderful and overwhelming.  I can hardly believe it.  It still seems so surreal to me.  But, we are here.

We arrived to a wonderful greeting too.  Our Realtor and her daughter were both here with balloons, a welcome sign, and a bottle of sparkling grape juice for our arrival.  Also, the neighbors were out and there were about 9 little kids running around.  Three of the kids were running over toward us saying, "you do it... no you... no you."  Then they started to run away and the little girl yelled back at us, "Welcome to the neighborhood."  It was very cute.  Christi and I are so excited that there are so many kids here.  A great new home to start.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of our new (empty) house.  (still so surreal!!!)

Travel Day #2

What a LONG day!!!!

Christi and I left at about noon today from Phoenix, AZ to continue our drive toward our new home in Boerne, TX. 

We drive for over 9 hours today, totaling over 660 miles before we decided to call it a day (at Midnight).  We decided to stop and get a hotel room in Fort Stockton, TX.  We stopped at one hotel - NO vacancy, then a 2nd hotel - NO vacancy.  We drove to a few others - NO vacancy.  We started to wonder what we were going to do.  I was exhausted from driving, and Christi was also tired.  We started to think we could drive until we couldn't drive any longer, then put the seats back and sleep in the car.  But, we decided to go down the road a bit further and see if there were any possibilities.  We came to a hotel called the Rodeway Inn and stopped to see.  Thank goodness, they had a room available.  The rooms are not the best, but better than the car.

So, we stopped for the night in Fort Stockton.  We will hit the road again tomorrow by 11 am and we have about 4 hours more to drive to get to our new home.  We should arrive sometime around 3 - 4 pm tomorrow.  I can't wait to finally be there!!!!